Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

[Rob Zook <rzook@INFORMIX.COM>]

At 04:28 PM 1/21/98 GMT+0, And Rosta wrote:
>John:
<snip>
>> Yes, except that not just every true belief counts as knowledge:
>> "George knows that there is life on Jupiter" is false even if
>> "George believes there is life on Jupiter" and "There is life on
>> Jupiter" are both true.  The presupposition of truth must be
>> justifiable.
>>
>> Furthermore, not even all justified true beliefs are knowledge, as I
>> have explained before:  "Sam and Frank know that the European war is
>> over" was false (a justified false belief) on 7 November 1918 in New
>> York (because the war was not over), and equally false on 12 November
>> in Bermuda (even though the war was now over).

This regresses epistemology back to absolute truth, which will never
seem like a tenable position. Truth only makes sense as a measurable
quantity, and as such only has meaning relative to the instrument
(i.e. system of knowledge) that you measure it with.

Within the system of knowledge that Sam and Frank used was it
a justified true belief (did they have any reason beyond the normal
to doubt the truth of the newspapers report)? If not, then within
that system it was true and justified, and thus knowledge. The
system you persist in regarding the situation should be regarded
as seperated and more inclusive from the one Sam and Frank evaluated
it from.


>I don't know whether I agree or not. Either way, this point is
>a refinement of my more general point, which is that DJUNO means
>"know" AND has a metaphysics place.

I think we lose something here if we start using metaphysics and
epistemology interchangibly. The gismu list calls the x4 place
the epistemology. Pray, let us stick to that, things are confused
enough as it is.


>We can then go on to discuss what *precisely* counts as knowledge,
>but it ceases to be a Lojban-specific issue (except to the extent
>that DJUNO involves knowledge).

How about instead of seeking precision we seek agreement? The
argument about what knowledge "is", or rather what one should call
knowledge has been raging for centuries, and I rather doubt we'll
solve it here.


Rob Z.
--------------------------------------------------------
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